The Court of Criminal Appeal has refused an application by the Director of Public Prosecutions to review as unduly lenient the sentence imposed on a teenager who pleaded guilty to rape.
In a judgment delivered by McCracken J on 13 July 2004, the court said the respondent had pleaded guilty to one charge of rape under section 4 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1990. He was sentenced to three years’ detention. After he had spent almost two months in detention, the trial judge suspended the entire balance of the sentence.
The offence took place on 12 November 2001, when the respondent was 15. The judgment said he went to a flat with a girl of his own age and a 12-year-old friend. After drinking beer, he left the flat with a male visitor who had also been drinking. The respondent pulled the man into an area where containers were parked, attacked him and raped him. A Garda patrol arrested the respondent after a member of the public reported trouble. The next day, the victim made a formal complaint. The respondent admitted the offence during a Garda interview attended by his father and showed remorse, the judgment said.
The court restated that the DPP carried the burden of proving undue leniency and that it should intervene only where the sentence substantially departed from the appropriate sentence. Rape normally calls for a custodial sentence, it said, but a sentencing judge may consider a non-custodial sentence where exceptional circumstances justify departing from that norm. The offender’s personal circumstances may be relevant.
The trial judge had relied on reports from the Probation and Welfare Service and the Southside Inter-Agency Treatment Team at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children. The reports were described as positive and said the respondent was benefiting from treatment and counselling. The judgment said he was expected to have a further 14 months of adolescent treatment, which he could not join if he served a substantial prison sentence.
The appeal court acknowledged the violence involved and expressed sympathy for the victim. It nevertheless agreed that the case was unusual and exceptional, and that the trial judge had applied the relevant principles. The suspended balance remained subject to three years’ supervision from the date of sentence and continued treatment. The judgment also noted that the respondent had been placed on the Sexual Offenders Register and had served a short period in prison on remand.
The court refused the DPP’s application, concluding that the sentence was not unduly lenient in these exceptional circumstances.